Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. (15 January 1929-4 April 1968) was President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1957 to 1968, preceding Ralph Abernathy. Dr. King was a Protestant African-American minister and a major leader of the Civil Rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s, leading the Birmingham campaign, March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery marches and meeting with presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to press for civil rights legislation. During the last few years of his life, Dr. King led opposition to the Vietnam War and fought against poverty, and he identified as a "democratic socialist". In 1968, while visiting Memphis, Tennessee to organize a workers' occupation of Washington DC, Dr. King was assassinated by James Earl Ray with a sniper rifle on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

Biography
Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on 15 January 1929, the son of a Baptist minister, Martin Luther King, Sr., and his wife Alberta Williams King. Interestingly, both Martin Luther Kings were born "Michael King", and both would change their names to honor the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther.